By the 14th of January our heavy guns were up; but by that time, too, the greater part of Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney were shielded from our direct fire by huge piles of sand-bags.[13]
We now began to get out of fuel, but we still had a resource in some wooden sheds inside the fort, which had been used as a temporary shelter for cement and building materials. Our position was greatly alleviated in one respect. Owing, it is said, to the influence of Mr. Gourdin, already referred to as a leading Secessionist, and an old friend of Major Anderson, we were allowed to receive our mails once more. After the _Star of the West_ affair, they probably thought we were very harmless people, and deserved some reward for our forbearance.
Major Anderson's Proposed Diplomatic Negotiations.--Defensive Preparations.--Changes in the Cabinet.--Meade's Defection.--Anecdote of Governor Pickens.--Battery at Cummings Point.--Soldiers' Families removed.--A Threatening Letter.--Confederate Visitors to the Fort.--Organization of the Confederate Government.
And now the Charleston statesmen concocted a plan to take away from us all hope of succor, so that we might be induced to surrender. To this end they determined to fill up the entrance of the harbor by depositing stone there. Whether they really intended to do this, or made a pretense of doing it, I never knew; but they certainly did obtain some old hulks from Savannah, and sunk them in the channel. Either these hulks were deposited in the wrong places, or else the tide drifted them into deep water, for it is certain they never formed any impediment to navigation afterward. Perhaps it was a mere _coup de théâtre_, to intimidate us, and prevent re-enforcements from attempting to come in; at all events, it was a preliminary to a grand effort to negotiate us out of Fort Sumter. For this purpose two representative men came over from the city on the 11th, in the little steamer _Antelope_, under a white flag. The party consisted of the late United States district judge, A.G. Magrath, now Secretary of State for South Carolina, and General D.F. Jamison, their new Secretary of War. The judge, who was the champion orator of the State, made a long and eloquent speech, the purport of which was that South Carolina was determined to have Fort Sumter at all hazards; that they would pull it down with their finger-nails, if they could not get it in any other way; that the other Southern States were becoming excited on the subject; that President Buchanan was in his dotage; that the government in Washington was breaking up; that all was confusion, despair, and disorder there; and that it was full time for us to look out for our own safety, for if we refused to give up the fort nothing could prevent the Southern troops from exterminating us. He ended this tragical statement by saying, "May God Almighty enable you to come to a just decision!"